IDS revises its research, guidance and coaching on minimising 'Hit While Parked' collision17th February 2014

Hit while parked collisions cost the global fleet and motor insurance industry significant amounts of time and money. For this reason we have undertaken a great deal of research, and produced a detailed guidance on the issue called: Reducing 'hit while parked' and 'driver unknown' incidents.

The 'hit while parked event type is very common, running at 38% of all collisions in one typical fleet we are currently working with. Such incidents are notoriously difficult to manage and in many previous cases we have been involved in high amounts of ‘damage while parked' incidents have normally been a symptom of several factors, including:

Telephone-based reporting systems, where it is easier for drivers to be selective with the truth or lose their memory about what actually happened. Telephone-based reporting has many advantages, but needs to be managed effectively, and staffed by appropriately experienced and trained people - who ask the correct questions and are diligent in entering / coding the data.

Limited control over the risk management of the fleet, particularly the lack of any investigation process after collisions. Post incident investigation, even for low cost minor incidents, should not be neglected by the line managers of fleet drivers.

Poor parking skills and or depot / site / car park layouts. Many driver training programs still appear to overlook low speed manoeuvring, and few of the fleet managers who attend our programs undertake the type of systematic risk assessments of their key sites that we would advocate.